He was a Geordie team-mate of Steve McClaren in the Hull City side that stormed to promotion back in the early eighties.

Les Mutrie had a good relationship with Newcastle’s current boss both socially and on the park as the Tigers tore up the old Fourth Division.

Steve, then only 21 and “a lovely kid,” used to pop round to Mutrie’s club house where Les’ wife Sandra would make him a chicken and white wine source dinner because he wasn’t getting enough grub in his digs.

Mutrie, back living on Tyneside, chuckled as he lifted the lid on McClaren the player, a tale rarely touched upon in comparison to his high-profile and much-documented life as a coach with Manchester United, England and Newcastle United.

First things first. Steve wasn’t Steve in those days. He was Sid!

“Aye, it’s true,” Les told me. “We never called him Steve. It was always Sid – ‘Sid, Sid pass it here, man on Sid.’ I don’t know why. He was at Hull before me and was always known as Sid. No one asked why. It was just accepted.”

Secondly when McClaren got married his best man was Billy Whitehurst. Yeah, the former Newcastle and Sunderland striker well versed in brutal centre-forward play. A man who made Desperate Dan look like a choir master.

That Hull side of 1982-83 which won promotion to the old Third Division was bursting with big names. Whitehurst was Mutrie’s strike partner, McClaren and Gareth Roberts pulled the midfield strings, future Gunner Brian Marwood was the lighting left winger who could catch pigeons, and Sunderland’s 1992 FA Cup final keeper Tony Norman was between the sticks.

“McClaren was great for me,” insisted Mutrie. “He could thread the ball through the eye of a needle and he had a great engine. I used to love to come short and get the ball to feet so I could use my skill and once Sid knew that he would stick it to me.

“Every morning while the rest of the lads played head tennis we would go on to the badminton court and play touch football for points. I had a good touch but Sid nearly always beat me.

“He never made it into the big time because of his lack of pace, but he had talent and had a good career in the lower leagues before he was forced to retire early at Oxford.

“Sid was always bothered by sciatica. It killed him, his thigh was shot. Often he would run with a limp. However there was a silver lining because when it forced him to give up playing he got into coaching early at Oxford and it turned out to be the making of him.”

What about those chicken dinners?

“Oh, aye, happy days,” laughed Les. “Sandra and I were in a clubhouse on the edge of the car park at Boothferry Park. Honestly it took me 15 seconds to get from our front door into the players’ lounge.

“We were only on £150 to £200 a week, McClaren and me, but we got an extra £100 crowd bonus for every 1,000 people over 4,000. The first thing we did when the fixtures came out was look for a home Boxing Day derby against Sheffield United because we could get a crowd of 12,000. That really was a Christmas present.

“Anyway kids in digs found it tough. Sid and his mate Steve Richards, our reserve centre-half who is now in the CID in Hull, used to come round for Sandra’s chicken dinners. Sid would scoff the lot but he never put on weight.

“We would go out socially. He was good company and a good mate. We were young lads but we never went out when we shouldn’t like the night before a game.”

According to Mutrie the “pride and joy” of McClaren’s life was his little car.

“It was a banger really but Sid was as proud as punch. This day it was parked outside the ground and Sid said the engine was over heating. He went over an lifted the bonnet. I was following him across when he went to unscrew the radiator. I shouted ‘NO!’ but I was too late. He burned all his face. It was awful.

“Often to his day I see him being interviewed and he’ll scratch his cheeks. That dates back to the burns he had.”

Promotion to League Three was won by a second-place finish when Mutrie and Whitehurst formed a strike partnership which struck fear into all opposition. For differing reasons.

“Like me, Billy had joined Hull from non league football,” recalled Les.

“He arrived a fortnight before I did. The trouble was he thought he could play but he couldn’t even trap a ball. Once it dawned on him that he wasn’t Maradona he was a handful. Absolutely fearsome.

“Billy wanted to win at everything – sprints, weights, tackles. He was super fit and only knew how to play one way. All the lads were terrified that they wouldn’t be on Billy’s team for five-a-sides because he would kill even his own! One of the lads regularly refused to play if he was in the opposition.

“All the tales about Whitehurst are correct, not exaggerated. He effectively finished the international career of Paul Bracewell at Newcastle.

“For Hull he was the other option to me in our approach. I wanted it to feet to play and Billy was the battler who wanted it in the mix.”

Marwood and Norman – both with strong North East links – were also Hull stars of the time.

“Brian was lightning quick but all he wanted to do was shoot,” recalled Mutrie. “I would be screaming for the ball but he would fire in a shot from an impossible angle. I used to call him the Mackem b*****d when he did it.”

Marwood, born at Seaham, was to enjoy a terrific career playing for Arsenal where he won his one and only England cap. Later he was chairman of the PFA and is now on the executive payroll at Manchester City.

Norman, a model of consistency, agility and fitness, became a Tigers legend before moving up north to Sunderland where he was Malcolm Crosby’s keeper in the 1992 FA Cup final against Liverpool.

“Tony was big with a long, long reach and was an absolutely superb keeper,” maintained Mutrie.

Les himself has a special place in Hull folklore.

He set a goalscoring record that stands to this day scoring in nine successive matches (14 goals during that run) the season before promotion.

By the time he left after four glorious years Mutrie had notched 49 goals in 115 games, an outstanding ratio.

He quit because he fell out with new manager Colin Appleton (“a man obsessed by defence”) and admitted: “I’m still upset I missed my half century of goals by just one!”

Mutrie has always been a Magpie fan having played for Newcastle Boys – once when due to leave the Central Station to turn out for Hartlepool Reserves he and a mate decided on the spur of the moment to go to St James’ Park instead.

“It was SuperMac’s home debut and he scored a hat-trick against Liverpool,” said Les. “What a centre-forward he was, such pace and power.”

Before I left our meeting in his daughter’s pub at Blucher I had to return to Sid. Did Les ever think his goal provider would coach Manchester United, England and Newcastle?

“Naw, it never crossed my mind,” Mutrie admitted with a smile. “We were just young and making our way in the game. We never discussed tactics in any detail.

“I like to think we were good mates. I wrote to him when he got the Newcastle job wishing him good luck and saying he would need it!

“I enclosed my phone number but he hasn’t rang as yet.

“I guess he has one or two things up there to sort out before he can start thinking of old mates!”